1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a maintenance unit used to perform maintenance on a liquid ejector and to a liquid ejection device, such as a printer, to which the maintenance unit is attached in a removable manner.
2. Related Art
One example of a liquid ejection device is an inkjet printer that includes a liquid ejection head, which ejects ink for printing, and a wiper holder, to which a wiper cassette is attached in a removable manner. The wiper cassette includes an elongated wiping member that wipes off liquid from the liquid ejection head.
The wiping member, which is accommodated in the wiper cassette, includes two ends that are each wound around a reel. Rotation of the two reels unwinds the wiping member from one reel and winds the wiping member around the other reel. The two reels are rotated to arrange an unused portion of the wiping member between the two reels and wipe the liquid ejection head with the unused portion (e.g., JP-A-2013-103379).
In a wiper cassette such as that described above, when the wiping member has been completely unwound from one reel and runs out of the unused portion, maintenance can no longer be performed on the liquid ejection head. Thus, when the remainder of the wiping member is not checked and the wiping member runs out of the unused portion during a maintenance operation, maintenance may end incomplete.
This problem is not limited to a wiping member that wipes ink off an ink ejection head and also occurs when performing maintenance on a liquid ejector using a maintenance member that has a limit to the usable amount or a usage expiration date.